Schlegel: Do you mainly rely on a particular fund family, or do you shop around?
Swanger: As much as I love Vanguard’s low-cost funds, I am a price-conscious investor. I look for other fund families for comparison first.
Schlegel: Are there any drawbacks to relying on ETFs?
Swanger: At the present time, there is no balanced ETF fund, or at least not one with some kind of track record that has garnered a Morningstar review. A balanced mutual fund has both the equity and fixed-income portions within the same fund, and that can be useful for a new investor who wants the diversification but doesn’t have much money to work with. If they want to follow a balanced strategy with ETFs, they would need to buy two ETFs [one focused on equities, the other on fixed income] for a diversified portfolio.